
of his essays was published in ‘The Lincolnian’.
Career:
In 1945, Nkrumah travelled back to London and got involved in organizing the Fifth Pan-African
Congress in Manchester and then worked towards decolonization of Africa by founding the West
African Nation Secretariat.
He got an invitation to become the General Secretary of the United Gold Coast Convention in
1947, an opportunity that he accepted and sailed back for Gold Coast. It took him a few months
to make the journey.
In 1948, Nkrumah was arrested along with other party members, after the police suspected
party’s involvement in the recent riots that spurred up in Accra, Kumasi, etc. after police fired on
a group of protesting ex-serviceman.
After he was released, he started working vehemently towards the political and social betterment
of Gold Coast. He had Cocoa farmers, trade unions and women on his side. In 1949 he formed a
new party, The Convention People’s Party.
The newly formed party demanded for universal franchise, a separate house of chiefs and self-
governing status under the Statute of Westminster for Ghana and when the demands were
rejected, Nkrumah organized civil disobedience movement, boycotts and strikes.
The revolt against the British governance led to immediate arrest of Nkrumah in 1950, along
with other members of The Convention People’s Party in 1950. He was sentenced to
imprisonment for three years.
In 1951, owing to international pressures and internal disobedience, the British decided to leave
Gold Coast and organized their first general elections. Although Nkrumah was in jail, his party
won the highest number of seats in the Legislative Assembly.
Nkrumah was released from the jail in 1951 and was asked to form a government. In the
following year, another amendment in the constitution took place as it was decided that Gold
Coast needed a Prime Minister.
Nkrumah won the election for the position of Prime Minister, hands down, in 1952 and the first
thing that he requested as Prime Minister of Ghana was independence within the British
Commonwealth. The request was approved.
In 1957, Ghana was declared free by their Prime Minister Nkrumah as it became a
Commonwealth realm. With years of hard work and political maneuvering, he declared his plans
to make Ghana a republic.
The presidential election and plebiscite on the constitution were held in 1960 and the constitution
was changed, which led to Nkrumah’s election as the President of Ghana. Ghanaian sovereignty
was surrendered to a Union of African States.
As soon as Nkrumah became the President of Ghana, he founded the Kwame Nkrumah
Ideological Institute to train Ghanaian civil servants and endorse Pan-Africanism. He made it
compulsory for all students to take a two-week ideological orientation before joining college.
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